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Certificates and appraisals

We offer a guarantee on every instrument in our catalogue.

Certificates and appraisals are an important cornerstone of the confidence you need when you select a stringed instrument – and they are key for insuring your instrument appropriately. Reliable verification of your instrument's provenance is an issue that requires greater knowledge than can usually be provided by those who are only qualified as craftsmen.

Corilon violins has meticulously studied over 4,000 good and fine stringed instruments, violins, violas and cellos representing a wide variety of price categories, historic periods and regional provenance – a vast range of experience which guarantees solid appraisals for all of the instruments in our catalogue. In addition, you can order a certificate of appraisal for every string instrument and bow we offer so you can have official confirmation of important information about the provenance, age, structural details and current value of your instrument. Depending on the prices of the instrument, the fee for issuing a certificate ranges from € 100 to € 200. The cost of each individual certificate is automatically displayed in the course of placing the order; as soon as you place the instrument in the shopping cart, you are given the additional option of ordering a certificate.

Furthermore, some of our especially valuable and rare masterpieces already include certificates from renowned independent appraisers; amongst them are J. F. Raffin, the leading Paris-based expert for French bows; Stuttgart luthier and appraiser Hieronymus Köstler; and Cremonese master Eric Blot. If such certificates are already present, we will inform you about it in the extensive description found in our online catalogue; you will also have the opportunity to see the certificate online.

Our special areas of competence include German, French, English and Italian stringed instruments of good and superior quality, many of which come to us with inadequate documentation. In this regard, we offer semi-professional musicians and demanding amateurs greater security than is commonly available when it comes to being protected against fakes and replicas.

We do not offer a certificate service for instruments not being sold through our catalogue.